CompuServe Messages

>How good is 3DS used in conjunction with C++ for producing games? Any other >tools? How about sound track? > >Any comment or experiences are welcome. > >Mei-Tien Lots of game companies use 3D Studio for game design. They use 3D Studio to generate 3D models, cut-scenes, and sometimes background scenes. C++ is also often used in game companies. To write games using 3D Studio, you'll need lots of support code for the game engine. People basically just generate the data with 3D Studio, testing animations and the like, then load the mesh and materials data into the game engine. Some games use 3D Studio scenes pregenerated for cut-scenes and trasitions (usually via FLI/FLC files) or for background images (.GIFs) for other screens. Animator Pro is often used as a paint/animation program for cut-scenes and desiging the graphics. DPaint from Electronic Arts is till the most popular paint program at several companies, however, but Animator is quite powerful. Sound is whole other ball of wax. Several companies sell sound libraries (Audio Interface Library and Sound Operating System are the two biggest I know of), but they cost. Doing your own is quite a hassle. The actually sound tracks are usually created with MIDI Keyboards and Drum machines and the like. Many of the sound libraries can play MIDI files on non-MIDI hardware, like the Sound Blaster's FM music etc. Several other programs are available for creating and manipulating digital effects, which can be played via the sound libraries. All in all, modern game design is quite an expensive process: programmers, musicians, artists, and of course, writers just to do the game, then play testers. Many small game groups have been able to make it, but it is a challenge. Chuck Walbourn – Vibrant Graphics PS: Two of our employees at Vibrant used to work for Origin Systems, Inc.